Behold, Mélat

Words by Janine Stankus Photos by Eric Morales

2020 forced most of us to scrounge for a silver lining, but silver linings are Mélat’s MO. The self-dubbed “R&B Soul Pop” singer is graced with a demure brand of positivity that manifests in her music. Despite a barrage of canceled plans, including a SXSW showcase and bi-coastal tour, and the rash of racial violence that temporarily “stole her words,” Mélat finds herself hopeful for the future.

“Even though all this stuff sucks, there’s still the possibility of a brighter tomorrow, so let’s just look forward to that,” she says with a doleful smile. “I’ve always tried to put that in everything that I do, even inadvertently.”

An Austin native and the daughter of first-generation Ethiopian emigrants, Mélat struggled to find her voice in Austin’s stunted soul and hip-hop scene. She’s battled feeling out-of-place all her life, though you couldn’t tell it from her songs in which she croons confidently, sometimes slipping seamlessly between English and her family’s native Amharic. 

Her performer-self is bold: a halo of blonde curls framing tigress eyes and a voice that carries straight to the heart. In person, she is surprisingly modest but equally effervescent and undeniably genuine. 

It’s music that finally made Mélat comfortable in her own skin. When her strict parents kept her from socializing and her shy nature kept her from opening up, she turned to writing as a form of therapy. “I’d write until my feelings came out… it’s like a bottle being shaken up,” she remembers. Eventually writing turned into song, and song into a budding music project, which finally blossomed into an all-consuming career as a singer, songwriter, and creative. 

So when the pandemic hit and plans were squashed, Mélat saw her silver lining. “The way society was, music just gets digested so quickly. The turnaround is insane,” she complains. “I actually had time to write, rewrite, and take my time with the songs.” After I Was All Alone, which she calls her “quarantine capsule album,” is set to release this spring, along with a video for the song “Anyway,” which is about accepting yourself and others how they are: a tribute to “love” in all its forms.

The prolonged pause has also given Mélat a chance to refine her purpose. In a haunting track called “Ngen (I Am)” off her 2016 album MeVen (sung entirely in Amharic,) Mélat channels the spirit of her two grandmothers who each called her by a different name: one meaning “to love” and the other, “new world.” 

“I felt like they were, from beyond, telling me that my purpose is to lead with love,” she says. But it took her some time to get over the “cleché-ness” of that term. Through writing and reflection, she’s come to refine what “leading with love” means for her art. “I want to make people feel the things that we’ve forgotten [to] feel,” she proclaims. “Hopefully, through my music and through the visuals, and all of that combined, you’re able to feel certain things deep down that maybe you can’t put into words.”

Contact:
beholdmelat.com
@beholdmelat